So I was talking with my wife tonight and I was talking about getting rid of some balloons that had been sitting around for a while in my study/balloon room. She said "cool no problem" but she knows I'm still super self-conscious about how just open and okay she is with balloons and balloon popping around the house. Anyone growing up being shamed about your balloon fetish can maybe relate to the uncomfortable feelings one can get when dealing with balloons around other people. Anyways, she's a earlier to bed type of woman, so by the time we wrapped up for the day, it was already time for bed for her. I asked if she still didn't mind if I had some balloon play after she went to bed, and was like "sure whatever, just wait until I fall asleep, then go have fun". Anyways, with all these feelings I have I thought about how to mask the sound from a sleeping person when popping and inflating just across the hallway. I decided to turn on a loud floor fan in our bed room near her bed, which she likes anyways because it sounds like white-noise. I closed the door and stuffed clothes up against the crack at the bottom of the door. I then went across the hall, and closed the door and stuffed blanket under that door too. I then turned on my inflator, which is one of those balloon-artist electric inflators which are a little quieter than a vacuum and inflated 10 U16"s. I returned to my wife and asked if she heard anything to which she replied, "I heard nothing". I was like oh damn! I then asked her to hang tight, bc I was gonna nail pop one and for her to tell me how it went. I closed up both rooms the same way with the fan on high, and popped one in the balloon room. When I returned, she had already fallen back asleep and said "Nope. Nothing." Wow! So just food for thought for anyone with noise issues. You may wanna give this a shot, with blankets and fans. I woulda used another fan in the other room as well as lay a bunch of other comforters and such over the furniture for more sound absorption, but that's for another day. Just thought I'd share!